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tv   Inside Man  CNN  July 13, 2013 5:00pm-6:01pm PDT

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i'm don lemon live here in sanford, florida. there you're looking at live pictures of the seminole county courthouse. inside that courtroom, inside that courthouse, six women. they are deliberating the fate of george zimmerman right now. this is cnn's special coverage of the george zimmerman trial. and in about 15 minutes, we may get a big clue as to how close we could be to a possible verdict. that's when court resumes. and the six-woman jury must get specific about its question on manslaughter. its question about manslaughter. here's judge debra nelson giving the court's response to the jury's manslaughter question which apparently was too vague.
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all right. we'll get that for you in just a little bit. we want to tell you george zimmerman's entire future in the hands of that six-woman jury which has been deliberating for more than 14 hours now. the case has sparked really passionate debate about just about everything. on race in america, about guns, about people across the nation. they have very strong opinions on this. judge debra nelson addressing the jury's question just a short time ago. listen. >> answer that has been agreed upon by both your counsel and the state is as follows. the court cannot engage in general discussions but may be able to address a specific question regarding clarification of the instructions regarding manslaughter. if you have a specific question, please submit it. is that acceptable to you, is sir? >> yes, your honor.
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>>ing a is septembacceptable to? >> yes, your honor. >> acceptable to counsel for the defense? >> in about 14 minutes we should hear something. it all comes down, again, as we've been saying to the six women who decide whether george zimmerman should go to prison for the shooting death of 17-year-old trayvon martin or will he walk away a free man in i want to bring in our legal team here, our experts. mark nejame, who is a respected attorney here in florida, as well as a cnn legal analyst. sunny hostin is a former prosecutor and attorney as well. paul cala flrks n, legal analyst. before i get to all of you, i want to get to martin savage. in the courtroom. he was in the courtroom when the judge called everyone in and said the question -- in the courthouse when the judge said that the jury had a question regarding second -- regarding manslaughter, excuse me. martin, take us inside the courtroom and tell us what we're waiting on now. >> well, don, of course what we're waiting for is essentially
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what the judge said. she came into the courtroom after that question was sent back by the attorneys. we were all to stand by 15 minutes to see if there was going to be some sort of immediate response from the jurors. that apparently didn't happen. the judge sent a deputy into the courtroom to say, hey, we're on a dinner recess. that will go until 8:15. that's the next milestone we're waiting for is about 13 minutes from now when essentially everyone comes back. does that mean that something is going to happen exactly at 8:15? not necessarily. what it means is that we're available if there is something that happens. if the jurors do send back another question. it can become this frustrating yet important action where the jurors sent out a question. theically say you know what, that question is too vague, we send them a question. so the questions have gone back to the jurors. if they are going to try and figure it out on their own or whether they come back with the specific question that the jurors, or the attorneys want,
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they'll have to see. what was interesting was the way this question was drafted. after all that we've been through is essentially one yellow legal pad that the judge hands the defense and prosecution. you have rich mantei and mark o'mara both hovering over that pad and both writing in different hands a little bit of the question. it goes to the judge. she reviews it, reads it to the court, makes sure that george zimmerman understands it then she rewrites it in her own handwriting because she was afraid that the jurors might be confused by two styles of handwriting and that's what went back. so all of this is basically over a very short sentence structure, but that could have very crucial meaning and we wait to find out if the jury is going to continue to deliberate. they asked for dinner. they're eating it now. we just have to wait. >> yeah, and marty, i think it's important also to point out that the judge said, listen, i want
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them to have this question in written form, i don't want anyone just to convey it to them because i want them to be able to look at it, no matter how many times, and it's in plain english right in front of them. she said that in court. >> correct. i mean, at one point it was actually mark o'mara who said, well, maybe the jurors will come into the courtroom and they will have the attorneys' question read to them by the judge, and that's when judge debra nelson said, no, i think it's better we send the question back to them. thereby they have a hard copy. thereby they can read it more than once or several times to gain their own clarification on the insight. that's what happened. the question was actually sent back by a bailiff and the jurors are going to review it as they eat their meal. >> yeah. and marty, when you're there there, having gone in there this morning, you've spent countless hours in there. you get a sense that something is going to happen because they'll come into the overflow room. not sure if you're in the
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overflow room or the actual courtroom. they'll say, bring everyone up or tell you the attorneys are about to come in, the judge is about to come if. do you get a sense of timing right now? we know it's supposed to happen at -- >> timing has been the question of the day. everyone has been wondering if it will be today. i think there was a general sense thereat that as we got into the early morning hour, maybe it isn't going to be today, maybe this is going to be another session, whether jurors say they have finished and would like to go back and rest for the night. but then we have this question, and that really has changed the whole attitude. i think now there is a sense that, okay, they must be getting close. they seem to be trying to define a specific law and maybe using that to come up with their verdict. so i think the anticipation is, with the question, the specific nature of that question, and with the dinner being brought in that the jurors are wanting to get something achieved tonight. you know what, we can all read way too much into this, and maybe that is not the case.
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i think we'll just have to watch, listen and see. >> marty, i think it's important what you're saying because this jury worked through lunch, and they're working through dinner. the judge invited them to take a dinner. they don't have to work through dinner. so i think it's important, you know, as you're saying, everyone's anticipating something's going to happen, that they've come to some sort of consensus. i mean, they're not taking many breaks here, are they? >> no. i mean, and that's probably the most important thing to look at here is that they have decided that they're going to push through, but -- and clearly they're committed. you know, they want to -- they want to try and get this definition down, but what does that really mean? we can sit there and say, does that mean they've taken second degree off the table and they're solely focused on manslaughter? maybe, maybe not. maybe this clarification will somehow refocus them on second-degree. it's just very difficult to really surmise when you're dealing with one question coming
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out and another question going back in. and we are all, you know, intensely focused on what could this mean. so i think you're right. you look at what is the obvious. they work through lunch, working through dinner. they clearly feel that they are making, i guess, progress, and that's what we should note because they've gone beyond the normal hours of the day. could they go all night? it is possible. i mean, judge debra nelson has worked case, not this one, but other cases that have gone into the morning hours where the jury just felt they could use that time. so it could be a long night. >> all right. martin savidge, i want you to be in place, of course, when this happens. so, martin, thank you very much. if anything happens, we'll get back to martin savidge, our man inside the courtroom in the george zimmerman trial. i want to bring in now our superpanel. sitting next to me, right here in sanford, florida, is sunny hostin, former prosecutor and also mark nejame, a respected
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attorney and also cnn analyst, paul calan a cnn analyst, holly hughes, former prosecutor and also faith jenkins. so many people to keep track of. there are no words on the screen. notice we were doing this without words on the screen. who do i have now? who do i have now? you're listening to martin savidge, saying, hey, listen, as i pointed out to him, he pointed out, they haven't taken many breaks. they said, we're ready to go home last night. that's about it. we want lunch, but we're working. >> that's par for the course for this jury. during the trial oftentimes the judge would say, would you like to take a break? they say, nope, we don't need to take a break. you know, during even closing arguments i was surprised that they wanted to just continue. it's the type of industrious jury we have here. >> i'm surprised they wanted to
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go home the other night. they have been relentless with their work ethic. >> quick lightning round. give me five or ten seconds from the group. first to you, paul, your assessesment. >> they're obviously a hardworking grun. a lot of these women have little kids at home and haven't been home to see the kids. they're working right through. you know, the thing i just wanted to focus on is it's really -- >> quick, paul. quickly, paul. >> yep. two ahead. the manslaughter thing is not that complicated. it's intentional. shooting the gun at trayvon martin. killing him without self-defense. that's manslaughter. that's a simple way to explain it. that's all it is. yep. >> holly hughes, very quickly. >> don, they're making progress, and they believe they can reach a unanimous decision or they would have already thrown there the towel and gone home for the night. >> faith? >> don, when a jury is sequestered, everyone works harder. the jurors, the court staff, the judges, the attorneys. because they want to get to a resolution. this case has been going on for a few weeks now. i expect we'll have a verdict this weekend if not tonight.
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>> okay. it should happen about five minutes or less if the judge will come back and give us some sort of idea of what is going on. that the jury is going to leave and go home for the evening or if they're going to continue to deliberate. the court is scheduled back less than five minutes. we're scheduled back much shorter time period than that. right after this break. i wanted to ask you a couple questions.card. i've got nothing to hide. my bill's due today and i haven't paid yet. you can pay up 'til midnight online or by phone the day it's due. got a witness to verify that? just you. you called me. ok, that checks out.
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don lemon. welcome back to our tonighting coverage of the george zimmerman trial. in any minute, we're expecting to hear from the judge, judge debra nelson, when we're supposed to hear from her. obviously she will come out when she -- when she gets ready to. but we're supposed to hear from her and what the jury is thinking in regards to that question about manslaughter. in the meantime, let's get back to business here as we await the judge. as we await this, and everything that's going on inside of that courthouse. inside of the courtroom. i have got mark nejame here who is an attorney and also a cnn legal analyst. i have sunny hostin here as well, a cnn legal analyst. s have holly hughes who is a former prosecutor and also paul callan who is a cnn legal analyst joining me in new york. paul, i was listening. what you said to me before the break, it did not two unheard. it did not fall on deaf ears.
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you said there is a -- it was very simple. you said it's very simple about manslaughter. talk to me about that. what did you mean by that? >> well, you know, i think what we're seeing now, and this is classic in a murder case, the jury is confused because when judges charge juries, they're reading from lawbooks. they're reading lengthy, complicated explanations of statutes. but i think you can boil this down so our viewers have a really clear understanding of what's going on. second-degree murder, which if sunny is correct, and she may very well be and they've already decided about that, is that with hate in his heart, george zimmerman pursued and killed trayvon martin, and he wasn't acting in self-defense. if they have moved beyond that, and they've said, maybe they've said, well, we can't prove that he had hate in his heart, maybe he did it just because he had other reasons to do it. so now we're going to look at manslaughter. well, manslaughter is much simpler. it's just that he, george
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zimmerman, pointed the gun and fired it directly at trayvon martin because anybody firing a gun at a person's chest would know that it was going to cause serious injury or death. and he was not acting in self-defense. if those two things are present, that's manslaughter. now, the judge is going to read this long explanation to the jury about what manslaughter is, but eventually this jury is going to find its way to that. if it's manslaughter, they have to find a gun was pointed, it was fired, and zimmerman was not acting in self-defense, and that is where we're going to be at the end of this charge if the jury is paying attention. >> so, paul, is this manslaughter? >> well, you know, that's a struggle. i don't know if there's enough -- i mean, i think this jury is very close to saying yes to that question, because i think the women on this jury are saying, a young 17-year-old adolescent is dead, and he was just in a condo development
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where he lived, and it's wrong and somebody's got to pay a price for it and maybe manslaughter is the price. i don't know how an appellate court will look at it, though, when it evaluates all the evidence in the case. will they say there was enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that zimmerman was not acting in self-defense? that's what i'm wondering about. in the end, where we'll go with the case. but i think the women on this jury are moving in the direction of manslaughter at this point. >> okay. to borrow from my friend, nancy, unleash the lawyers here. you're noting your head. what are you thinking? >> well, i think there's some strong points of appeal if there's a conviction, but i don't think that a court will reverse based upon the fact that they don't find that a manslaughter occurred on that issue because appellate courts don't review issues of fact. and i think that the prosecution
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did put together, i thought this was a challenging case for the state, they put together enough if there's a conviction at won't be the basis for appeal. discovery issues we talked about earlier may, in fact, be valid. i think some of the discovery issues as far as the time that was given to the defense to go through all that when it came out at a relatively last minute, i think maybe some valid grounds for an appeal. not on that ground, specifically. i'm thinking that there's a real debate going on, you know, right now i think there's a real debate going on because i think that jury represents a microcosm of our society which is split down the middle on this case, and i think some are saying acque acquittal, some are saying conviction. i do think, though, this is a jury that's not going to feel satisfied unless they come up with an answer. they're going to do everything possible not to allow a hung jury to occur. >> holly hughes, before the break, don't think i didn't listen to you as well. i heard you. you said this jury, you're saying the opposite of what mark nejame is saying. you're saying this is a
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unanimous jury. what do you mean by that? how so? >> i think they believe they can unanimously reach a verdict, whether it's a not guilty or whether it's a guilty on manslaughter. and the reason that i say that, don, if these women were so polarized in that room, and we've seen how this case can do that, right? you and i first reported this case a year and a half ago when it first happened in february of 2012, before ben crump, before anybody else we talked about this. we have seen the evolution of this case. it is very polarizing. so if you had, as, you know, mark has been discussing, a jury is a microcosm of our society. if you had such strong opinions in there that these women were completely polarized, they would not still be hashing it out at 8:20 on a saturday evening. i think they would have said, you know what, let's just go tell the judge we can't reach a decision or let's just go back to the hotel, get a good night's
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sleep, and we will start duking it out first thing in the morning. the fact that they are still there and, let's face it, at 9:00, guys, in 40 minutes, these women will have been at it for 12 straight hours. >> 12 hours. >> and they're still going. and they're still willing to be going. and that tells me they believe amongst themselves they could reach an aagreement, which is what we need, don, whether a not guilty, a guilty of manslaughter or guilty of second-degree. they have to be unanimous or have got to call it quits. >> and if they can keep going, we can keep going and we will as long as they are deliberating, we will be on the air live to bring you the very latest developments. it's a good time to take a break, now, because we're awaiting the judge, at least, not sure if the jury will come back. the judge and the attorneys to come back into court to give us an update at any moment here on cnn. you're not going to miss a moment of it. live coverage coming up right after this break. the chevy malibu offers
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they're still working at this late hour. as our holly hughes pointed out, in atlanta, and just over -- just about 35 minutes, they will have been deliberating for 12 hours today. jeffrey toobin, cnn legal analyst. what do you make of the deliberations into this late hour? >> well, juries tend to work late when they're close to a resolution. that's the general rule. now, that doesn't necessariesly mean we're close to a verdict, but especially a sequestered jury wants to get this over with. they want to go home. they want to be with their families. and they are going to try to work into the night if they can get it done. that doesn't mean they will get it done, but certainly the fair assumption is that you don't work until 8:00 if you, unless you think you can just get it done tonight. >> so you think that they're close to something, otherwise
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they go home? >> well, or they would just pack it in for the night and go back to hair hotel and relax. this is, you know, this is an unusually long deliberation. they started at 9:00 in the morning. it's not unusually long in terms of number of days. for a single day, it's very unusual for a jury to deliberate for almost 12 hours. so this is a very hardworking jury. and i would just -- i would just assume, guess, and, of course, i could be wrong, is that they are not -- they're not staying this late just because they think they're going to go on for another three or four days. they're staying this late because they think they can get it done today. >> is there anything to read into the judge was supposed to, you know, at one point the judge came out and said, during the clarificati clarification, remember, jeffrey, when she sent the note back saying i'm going to send this note back with the court officer, give me 15 minutes, guys, and i'll get back to you
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and let you know. we didn't hear from her for those 15 minutes. then in that time she invited them to go to dinner and the jury kept working. that we haven't heard from the judge in this, does that add anything to this? >> you know, we're starting to get into the logistics of dinner and -- >> i know. i'm asking you to read the tea leaves and crystal ball. >> there could be logistical things about where they're getting dinner and where they're ordering, and i just don't want to assume anything about that that has any legal significance. i think the only thing we know for sure is it's 8:00 at night, it's past 8:00, and they're still deliberating. and that's unusual and juries tend to only deliberate late at night when they think they can get done that night. >> yeah. jeffrey toobin, standby. we'll come back to you. i want to bring mark nejame in here, as people on social media have been reminding you when i introduce you as a cnn analyst, a very highly respected attorney here in the florida area.
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you've represented some very high-profile people including tiger woods and on and on. also the largest criminal defense firm in orlando. you know the players. >> not admitting or denying. >> yes, but you know the players here and you know, you can give us an idea of what's happening here and what we can expect. and i'm sure you've been involved in deliberations that have gone into the wee hours. how has that usually worked out for you if you can offer us perspective on that? >> this is such a different case. any high-profile case, it's just different. we've seen a revolution going on in the last few years. >> are we making too much of every single little moment here, you think? >> that's what we do. so the answer is, no, because this is what we do. we're all three of us are on our social media as we're up here. i'm on my twitter, facebook. sunny is nonstop. she can go out for the olympics with her finger movement. don, you're nonstop as well. that's the way it is. we saw it first in the casey anthony case. we talked about it.
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truly, it's interactive, it's realtime. people are engaged. we have media in the courtroom in florida. not everybody does. people get blow-by-blow what's going on. they're learning the justice system. we're not necessarily the most educated people in the world when it comes to understanding the legal system, and our own government. this allows people to have that opportunity. and i think people have become engaged. we know people like crime stories. >> right. >> we know that. we saw "law and order." we see the judge shows on tv. we see "csi." we know all this exists and people are fascinated by it but they're starting to realize that it's not just so polar, that there are so many shades that go in between. >> yeah. one second. i don't mean to cut you off. i've been told by my producers the jury finished dinnish. the swrur hjury finished their and are back to deliberating. >> they've been deliberating 15 hours. >> 15 hours. >> sunny, that goes past your one hour per day. we had 14 days of trial. so if you go to an old adage
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which we know isn't locked in anything, but if we're using, you know, a yardstick to measure this by, we're past the normal one hour per day of -- >> one hour of deliberations per day of trial. that's sort of the standard. so they're at 15 hours instead of 14 hours, but i've got to tell you, i mean, i would agree with jeff, a jury that ordered dinner at around 6:00 or 7:00, ate dinner, it's now 8:30, they have continued deliberating. that tells me they think they can reach a resolution tonight. >> we said thereat hoat hours a they still work through the night, they're getting closer to a verdict. >> i've been told by my producer, there's nothing in teleprompter. i'm going it to reset here. it's past the bottom of the hour, it's 8:31 eastern time. 8:31 eastern time. don lemon live, in sanford, florida, where the jury is still
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deliberating, going into almost their 12th hour today of deliberation for the george zimmerman murder trial. they have been going at it for a long time. yesterday they deliberated for 3 1/2 hours before telling the judge they were ready to go home. and they sent a note earlier, just about two hours ago, to the judge saying that they needed some clarification. they had a question about manslaughter. and so the judge came out and they sort of rectified the situation. sent a note back to the jury saying that they couldn't talk in general about manslaughter, but they could answer specific questions if the jury had it about manslaughter. let's listen now to judge debra nelson. >> answer that has been agreed upon by both your counsel and the state is as follows. the court cannot engage in general discussions but may be able to address a specific question regarding clarification of the instructions regarding manslaughter. if you have a specific question, please submit it.
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is that acceptable to you, sir? >> yes, your honor. >> acceptable to the state? >> yes, your honor. >> acceptable to counsel for the defense? >> yes, your honor. >> thank you. >> all right. now we're awaiting the jury and the judge to come back now and tell us how long if they're going to continue to deliberate, or if they have, in fact, come to a verdict. the judge was supposed to come out at about 8:15. she said they were supposed to take dinner until then. we were expecting the judge to come out about 8:15 and tell us what that six-woman jury, six-woman jury was up to, what they had decided so far. to continue on or if they had come to some sort of resolution. what they decided about their question, what have you. we have what i'm calling a superpsupe superpanel of legal experts on cnn tonight guiding us through all of this. they'll be helping us out right after this. again, i don't know if you guys can hear this. there are helicopters, local news helicopters are in the air. there are people fwagathering
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outside the courthouse right now. there are people waiting inside the courthouse. court observers, reporters and of course the zimmerman family, george zimmerman, the attorneys, all inside, all waits to hear what this six-woman -- this jury of six women, let's put it that way, what they're going to decide this evening if anything. we're going to be back in a short moment. vo: getting your car serviced at meineke, smart.
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even smarter. online scheduling. available now at meineke.com. back now with cnn's continuing coverage of the george zimmerman trial. i'm don lemon live in sanford, florida. the seminole county courthouse. you see the lights on. the top row, thereat is the fif floor where the courtroom is. i want to tell you guys, tell our viewers we're getting guidance from martin savidge who is inside of the courthouse that they have been moving reporters and members of the media around in the courthouse and that may be an indication that we may have some movement soon in this particular case. not exactly sure what that means. why don't we go to martin savidge inside of the courthouse? what do you have for us? >> don, can you hear me? we're once again in kind of the standby mode. we are not up on the fifth floor
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because judge nelson has determined at this particular time there's no reason for us to be up there. the courtroom is not open. it means we're back on the first floor which is the general waiting area for the media. so it's kind of a standby or maybe even a stand-down. once dinner, she did tell us that, you know, dinner was complete for the jurors. we anticipated we might get called back in, maybe their response question, the question that went back to them. that hasn't happened. so we're sort of back to the posture we were at for much of the day which is waiting on the first floor, waiting to see if there will be any further developments tonight. we know the jury is still deliberating, but beyond that, nothing more. if we got some sort of quick response, i'm afraid that isn't happening. and the jury apparently didn't have a quick answer back. and what does that mean? i'm at a loss on what to tell you, don? >> yeah, we were trying to figure that out, martin.
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she did come out, correct me if i'm wrong, she said the jury has ordered dinner. she said, but before you guys do anything, before you take a dinner break, give me 15 minutes to decide how the jury wants to respond to this, correct? we never heard back. >> right. we waited the 15 minutes and then the judge didn't actually even come back into the courtroom. she sent a deputy, and said the judge wanted to let you know that this court is now in a one hour dinner recess. so that happened. we're back but nothing since. does that mean that the jurors are not going to respond with their own question? or maybe they're fine tuning their question. so there are so many things we could ask and sift through and determine. what we do know is they're working late which must mean in some way they feel they're making progress, and that they have had a question about manslaughter, but that question was answered with another question from the attorneys, be
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more specific. and since then, silence from those jurors. we'll wait, we're here, we're ready to go back into the courtroom. we will be notified the moment there is another development, don. >> all right. cnn's martin savidge inside the courthouse now with that new information. martin, thank you very much. i have a team of experts with me outside the courthouse. mark nejame, who is an experienced attorney as well as a cnn legal analyst, sunny hostin is here as well. she's an attorney, former prosecutor. paul callan is a cnn legal analyst. holly hughes is a former prosecutor and faith jenkins, former prosecutor as well. hey, paul, i want to go to you and ask you a question. are you with me there in new york? >> oh, i'm with you, but you're forgetting, i'm a former prosecutor, too. deputy chief homicide. how do you like that? >> all right. >> i have to jump right on this prosecutor bandwagon here. >> all right. >> okay. go ahead, don. >> all right. we want to give you our props. listen, i think this is a very good question, and this is from
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cnn producer eric hall. thank you for this question. i think it's really good. he said paul callan put it in simple terms which is helpful to us, but curious. will someone make it that simple for the jurors? is someone allowed to, paul? >> no, they're not. i think that's what makes things very confusing for jurors. florida does thing, by the way, that a lot of states don't. new york, for instance, doesn't send written instructions into the jury. these jurors can bring those instructions in and read them. no, the judge, probably, she may narrow the instructions a little bit instead of reading the whole statute, she'll read some of the portions of it. but she'll never make it as simple as i did because, frankly, she'd be afraid an appellate court would say that's an oversimplification and it was unfair to the defendant. but in reality, that's really what it does come down to. it's not overly complicated. you know how the law is, they muck it up and make it complicated. ordinary people have hard time understanding. . lawyers have a hard time
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understanding it. >> so then the question is, why not simplify it? >> a lot of lawyers would be out of work. >> well, and i -- >> that's a simple answer, right? i mean, paul, do you agree with that? >> you know, here's the problem. the problem with it is that manslaughter is something that covers an awful lot of situations. let me give you a couple of examples. if you're out drinking too much, and you run a red light and you run somebody over, manslaughter. in this situation, the prosecution is saying manslaughter. if you were to throw a brick off of a building, not intending to hit somebody, but it did hit somebody, manslaughter. all right. so there are all of these different situations that the statute has to cover. all of this very human behavior. so the legislature has to struggle with it and make it big enough that it covers all these categories. but when you have a specific
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fact pattern like this, discharge of a gun, nope, no self-defense. it's really pretty simple. but if the judge were to say that to the jury, it would look like she was making up her mind and trying to encourage them to focus on the most damaging aspects of the charges against george zimmerman, and that wouldn't be fair. so as a result, she reads the complicated law to them and simplifies it a little, but in the end, they've got to struggle and figure it out themselves in the jury room. >> okay. where are we now? we're about -- we're 15 hours. more than 15 hours that this jury has been deliberating. almost 12 hours today that they have been deliberating, right through lunch and right through dinner. and we're going to continue on as long as they are continuing to deliberate here on cnn. we're awaiting the judge, waiting the judge, the judge should be out at any moment now to tell us what we can expect. that is the seminole county courthouse. that is a live picture on that top floor where the lights are
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on. that's where the courtroom is where all of this will be decided, and george zimmerman's fate will be decided in that courtroom on that fifth floor and it could happen at any moment. we're back in a moment as well. i'm gonna have to ask you to power down your little word game. i think your friends will understand. oh...no, it's actually my geico app...see? ...i just uh paid my bill. did you really? from the plane? yeah, i can manage my policy, get roadside assistance, pretty much access geico 24/7. sounds a little too good to be true sir. i'll believe that when pigs fly. ok, did she seriously just say that? geico. just a click away with our free mobile app.
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you are taking a live look there at the seminole county
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courthouse in sanford, florida, where the jury in the george zimmerman murder trial has been deliberating for 12 hours straight on a saturday. some have indicated we may be close to a verdict. so stay with us right here on cnn. hi, everybody, i'm alina cho in new york. cnn's special coverage of the george zimmerman trial returns in just a moment, but first, a look at some of the other news happening today. the death toll is rising in runaway train explosion in canada. police in quebec say there are now 33 people confirmed dead. about 30 others still missing. this new video shows massive debris from the blast coating the town. the train company's ceo has faced some anger from residents when he visited the town on wednesday. he has said the train engineer may have lied when he said he set the hand brakes on the train cars before the accident. one week ago today, those train cars filled with crude oil exploded into an inferno.
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authorities say the massive fire may have vaporized some of the victims. to san francisco, now, and some sad news to report related to last weekend's crash of that asiana airlines flight. hospital officials say a third crash victim has now died. she's only being identified as a girl. her parents asked that no other information be released. two other girls, both 16 years old, also died in the crash. we have also learned one of those girls was hit on the runway by a fire truck, but we still don't know if she was already dead when she was hit. meantime, airport officials have been working very hard to resume normal operations there. the runway that was the site of the crash has re-opened and that happened last night. the white house says there is no indication that russia is prepared to send intelligence leaker edward snowden back to the united states. nsa leaker edward snowden made his first public appearance yesterday since leaving hong kong last month. >> a little over one month ago i
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had a family, a home in paradise and i lived in great comfort. i also had the capability without any warrant of the law to search for, seize, and read your communications. anyone's communications at any time. >> president obama spoke with his russian counterpart vladimir putin by phone yesterday about fate of snowden. snowden is wanted in the u.s. for leaking intelligence secrets. he's been hiding out at moscow's main airport. it's been another deadly day in iraq. at least 14 people killed, dozens injured in three separate bombings around baghdad. nine of those deaths were in a busy shopping area in the southern part of the city. another bombing took place near a sunni mosque. and on friday, at least 33 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a coffeehouse in kirkuk. it is the single deadliest attack on the u.n.'s international peace keeping force in sudan. seven peacekeepers were killed,
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17 others injured during an ambush. it happened in south darfur just north of the state capital. so far no claim of responsibility. some 300,000 people have been killed in darfur since rebels began fighting the sudanese government nearly a decade ago. typhoon soulik is creeping toward china after drenching taiwan with 8 inches of rain in just one day. take a look at that. the storm lashed the island with strong winds and rain, but its trip over the island apparently sapped its strength, and it's now been weakened to the equivalent of a category 1 hurricane. china is now bracing for that typhoon. it's expected to bring even more rain to areas already soaking wet from earlier storms. stay with us. i'm alina cho in new york. our live coverage of the george zimmerman murder trial cons after this quick break. i missed a payment. aw, shoot. shoot! this is bad. no! we're good! this is your first time missing a payment.
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live coverage flnow of the george zimmerman murder trial. there is that seminole county courthouse where that six-woman
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jury are inside right now and they are deliberating the fate of george zimmerman. the neighborhood watchman who is accused of murdering 17-year-old trayvon martin, and we just got some new information from inside the court from our martin savidge who's saying they are moving people around. they moved them off the fifth floor and moved them into a holding room on the first floor and he's not exactly sure what's that indicative of but there is some movement inside of the courthouse. i want to update you on exactly what took place, what happened earlier this evening. it's been about two hours since all of this went down. since the jury sent a note to the judge saying that they had a question regarding manslaughter. the judge came out and brought everyone in to the courtroom and said, and told them that the jury had a question about manslaughter. she talked about it with the attorneys and with the prosecution and the defense. everyone, the consensus was is that the jury had to send a more
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specific question, or more specific questions about manslaughter rather than just speaking on manslaughter in general terms. and so they sent a note back to the jury, the judge did, in her own handwriting, telling them as such, and then telling the attorneys to give her 15 minutes to hear what the jury had to say. what their response would be to that particular note. we did not hear back from the judge about their response. in the meantime, we did hear that the judge invited the attorneys and the jury to go to dinner and return at 8:15 eastern time. well, the jury decided that they would work through dinner and at 8:15 eastern time we heard that they were still back deliberating. still no word from the judge on their question and now at this hour, at almost 9:00 p.m. eastern time, jury still deliberating. three minutes until the top of the hour, we haven't really heard anything. just before we get to the top of the hour, i want to bring mark
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nejame here. mark is joining me along with a whole host of other legal experts and sunny hostin who's here with me in sanford, physicaflorid florida. so, mark, what does this long hour say to us, does it say anything? >> well, if i want to be facetious about it, a lot of people are talking about, you have one jury with eight kids and she's enjoying the night off, or the time off. you know, she's getting room and board and a little bit of peace. but the reality of it is i think we've really got a working jury here. i think we've got a jury that, as we said so many times, they just -- i think we should be proud to have them represent, you know, what a jury stands for. because, you know, it's just not the united states watching this. the world is watching it and they're really seeing justice in action right here over a very divided issue. but it's playing out to the world in a way that it's supposed to. >> you know what's interesting, i'm getting so many tweets asking me when, you know, how late will this judge allow this jury to go? >> late. >> i just found out that she let
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another jury go until about 3:00 a.m. we can expect, perhaps, this judge to allow this jury to go as long as they want to go which is fascinating because most judges will set hours. they'll say, okay, deliberations will end at 6:00. we have to remember this is a sequestered jury so they don't have anywhere else to go but back to their hotel room or be in the courthouse. so clearly they've decided to be here. >> we're going to be live, as long as they're deliberating they're going to be here on cnn. thank goodness for the caffeine we just had. alina cho gave us the other news of the day. it could be a very long evening. we have to remember here, we have the brief moment of lefvit. there's a young man, 29-year-old man that could go to jail for life, for a very long time. >> for real life. >> for real life. there's a young man, a 17-year-old who lost his life in all of this, who's no longer with us. that's what is being decided. trayvon martin. that's what's being decided
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inside of that courtroom right now. and so there are two families at home, and thousands of people who are part of that family around the country anticipating this and millions of people around the country and the world trying to figure out what these six women will do in all of this. i'm don lemon here in sanford, florida, with cnn's special coverage of the george zimmerman trial. any minute now we may get a big clue to how close we could be to a possible verdict. that is when the court resumes and the six-woman jury must get specific about its questions on manslaughter. here is judge debra nelson giving the court's response to the jury's manslaughter question which was apparently too vague. >> answer that has been agreed upon byh

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